


When the Time Comes

by ESpencer



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, I made myself sad, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 05:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8131642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ESpencer/pseuds/ESpencer
Summary: The night before his trial and imminent execution, Laurent has a conversation with ghosts.





	

Laurent’s head lolled against the dank walls of his cell. He had been there for hours, exhausted, but refusing to sleep. Half wary that the second he closed his eyes, his uncle would send in an assassin to do away with him. How many times, he thought, had that man thought about killing him in his sleep only to stay his hand until the opportune moment?

Not that it would matter much. His trial would be concluded before noon tomorrow, his head decorating the city gates. He half wondered what they would do with the rest of him. If he was not to be buried beside his father and Auguste, what would become of the remains? It was a dismal though, a sickening thought. Second only to his ruminations on the moment of death, on whether or not it would hurt.

“I should say not.” The voice emanated out from the darkness of the cell. Laurent blinked once, twice, recognizing it in the same moment that he deciphered he must be going insane. But the voice only chuckled. “A harsh pressure and a dull throbbing. Rather like having your ears pierced.”

And then Auguste stepped out of the shadows, whole and golden and vibrant as the day he had ridden out on the fields of Marlas. Laurent’s jaw fell open, for once his mind unable to catch up to his body. For several moments he was only able to gape at him. His brother, his Auguste—perfect, and radiant, and _whole_.

“Auguste,” he finally managed. His voice sounded like an open wound. But Auguste only smiled.

“You’ve gotten yourself in quite a mess, little brother.”

It was the same thing Auguste had said to him when he was caught sneaking sweets from the cupboard or been yanked out of the saddle when his pony stopped to graze. And suddenly it was as if no time had passed. He was a child again, following in the comet tail his brother left behind. Content there, even if his star would never shine as bright.

“I’ve missed you,” he breathed. Auguste approached, resting his broad palm atop Laurent’s sweat-darkened hair.

“And I you, of course. Every day.”

“You’re alive?” he asked, a desperate note entering his tone.

His brother smiled sadly. “I’m not.”

“Am _I_ alive?”

“Presently, yes.”

“But not for long.”

The sad smile again. “We don’t need to talk about that now.”

Laurent felt the strings of every web he had ever spun falling out from under him. His uncle, The Regent, had cut them too thoroughly this time. There was nothing left that he could cling to, nothing there to catch him as he fell. Not even Damen. Stupid, impossible Damen who had always done his best to do the right thing. To make _Laurent_ do the right thing. All of it was receding before him across a vast ocean of possible futures that were never to be. Just as they had with Auguste.

“Are you here to comfort me, then? Hold my hand as I set foot in the grave?” he asked, not troubling to disguise his bitterness.

“If that is what you wish me to be.” Auguste remained motionless, a phantom or manipulation of time and space.

“I used to wish that I could have been there when you…” Laurent found that he was still unable to voice it, even now, even as close to death as he was. “I wished that I could have held your hand, exchanged a last word or two. Tell you how much I admired and loved you.”

“I know, Laurent, I know.”

“Will you be there with me tomorrow, when it’s…time?”

“I never left.”

As Laurent looked at him, he noticed the red stain beginning to bloom out from his armor. It spread quickly, dripping down his chest to the floor. Auguste raised a hand, his fingers pulling away bloodied. He looked at them as though he were surprised, but not particularly concerned.

 _He died well_. Damen’s words, spoken by the one who would know best.

“I’m scared,” he admitted, his gaze dropping to the floor.

“Hah!” came the response. It was not Auguste’s voice, though, not his warm and sonorous laughter but a high, mischievous snickering.  
Laurent looked up. “Fear is not a good look for you. It makes you seem rather pathetic.”

Nicaise. The boy pet sat across from him on the stone ledge that formed the only proper space to sit in the whole cell. His legs dangled off the edge, not quite touching the floor.

Laurent narrowed his eyes, his persona instantly transformed. “And I suppose you would know?”

“Yes,” Nicaise bit back. “Pathetic things are always the most tedious. No one is going to feel sympathy if you face death as a sniveling coward. They’ll forget you as soon as you’re gone.”

Nicaise swung his legs back and forth as he spoke, the gesture poignantly youthful. Looking at him was a continuous paradox of wisdom and inexperience. And all of it wrapped up in effervescent beauty. With a stabbing in his chest, Laurent thought of what he might have been if only he had been allowed to grow up.

“And I suppose you would know.”

In some instinctive part of his brain, Laurent knew that Nicaise had not died well. He would have pleaded, at the end. Pleaded to the man who had stolen his childhood with the weight of a single thrust. The man who had the audacity to make him believe that he had once loved him. Perhaps he had even wished that—by some miracle of miracles—Laurent might swoop in and save him.  
But they were both too practical to cling to wishes for long.

“Have you thought about how you want things to go tomorrow?” The swinging of legs had ceased. Nicaise now looked at him with complete seriousness, his sapphire eyes unyielding.

Laurent scoffed. “Of course. It will go as well as can be expected. Loyse will testify on Damen’s behalf. His name will be cleared.”

“You’ve given up hope for yourself, then.”

“There is no hope for me.”

“There could be proof. Something that would damn The Regent beyond redemption.”

“If there is, I don’t know it. Nor do I have a means of exercising it.”

“ _I_ know it.”

Laurent’s breath caught. Of course, he thought. He had always known that his uncle must have a reason for executing his lover that was greater than sending a message to his nephew. Of course Nicaise had known something, something he shouldn’t have. A chess piece that he had never wanted, but still been forced to play.

“Tell me,” he demanded.

“I can’t.”

“Nicaise. Tell me now.”

“I can’t. He cut off my head.” A crimson line appeared around the column of Nicaise’s elegant throat. “It’s hard for the dead to speak, and even harder for the living to hear them.”

“There must be a way…” Laurent mused, more to himself now.

“I have to go,” Nicaise said, jumping down from the ledge. There was a haziness to his outline. As though he were fading into the background. The line around his throat was growing deeper, stretching towards its irreparable conclusion.

“Don’t. Don’t go.” Laurent begged. He reached out, wanting to place his hand atop Nicaise’s dark curls as Auguste had so often done to him.

“I must. My time is up. I never had that much to begin with.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t protect you better.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. Even you couldn’t prevent the inevitable.” Nicaise was retreating now, moving farther and farther out of reach.

“I wore your earring once. Made everyone believe I was a pet.”

Nicaise turned, glancing over his shoulder, eyes like chips of ice. “I wore it better.”

“Undoubtedly,” Laurent smiled.

As Nicaise approached the door, Auguste appeared once more, reaching out a hand to him. Nicaise looked at it—surprised, skeptical—before taking it. They stood there a moment, gazing back at him, and the three were paused in a moment of tableaux. The prince and the whore and the boy who had loved them both.

“We’ll both be there for you. When the time comes. And all the time in between.”

Laurent nodded once, saying goodbye to them again. Perhaps, in another life, he would have had the time to grieve them properly. Perhaps, in another life, he would never have had to mourn at all.

When the guards woke him the next morning, he stood calm and resigned and ready to meet his fate.


End file.
